Springer reaches quota, Open Access temporarily closed
Springer reaches quota
Open Access temporarily closed
Door Giulia Fabrizi
By Giulia Fabrizi
Researchers who do want to publish in a Springer journal will have to pay for it using their research funds. ‘Springer charges more than two thousand euros for each article they accept’, says Peter van Laarhoven at the UB.
He doesn’t know how many RUG academics are affected by the quota. ‘As a rule of thumb, the RUG publishes approximately four articles a week’, he says. With three weeks to go until the end of the year, he estimates about a dozen articles still need to be published.
Alternative
The alternative is to publish articles ‘closed access’. ‘The published version can then be made open access through Pure, no more than six months after it was published’, says Van Laarhoven.
Open access publications are available to the everyone, without anyone needing to get an expensive subscription to publishers like Springer. Dutch universities, who make publication deals under the flag of the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), want to provide most of the publications in 2020 as open access.
Over the past few years, there’s been a battle to change to publication norm from Closed Access (where articles can only be accessed through subscriptions) to Open Access. The battle focused on the deals with academic publishers, who stand to make money off the subscriptions.
Pioneer
According to Van Laarhoven, Springer has been a pioneer in the change to the new norm. Nevertheless, this is the second year in a row that the publisher has reached the national quota before the end of the year.
‘At Springer, we reached a deal for the maximum number of publications based on the average number over the past few years’, Ruber Puylaert with the VSNU explains. ‘Our deal with them runs for three years, until the end of 2020. This also means we’ll be entering into new negotiations with Springer in 2020.’